2012 is done, all over bar the shouting, fireworks, drunken dancing, fighting and people kissing people they would otherwise never touch with a ten foot barge pole (speaking of which, why don't I ever get invited to those sorts of parties any more?). Oh yes; 2012, the cheeky little imp that it is (or was, if you're already into January 1st), appears to be going out with a feeble whimper rather than the cataclysmic, apocalyptic...erm...something...which a handful of fools hysterically predicted would happen. I suppose I have about ten hours to get through before I'm safe on that point, but a goodly portion of the globe has already welcomed January 1st 2013 as I write. With a bit of luck the American senate will yet disappear up its own collective rectums, skid over a cliff and just like in all the movies; create a fireball worthy of the end of the year.

It's no surprise that the 'end of the world' prediction turned out to be what we UK folks call ' utter bollocks'. As a brief aside, I heartily recommend all non-UK English speakers start using the word 'bollocks' (without by the way pretending that it's an American invention) - if nothing else, it's so much more versatile and expressive than the rough equivalent: "bullshit".

This silly doomsday prediction was of course fueled by the internet's immediacy (how else would anyone ever have heard of 'Gangnam Style'?) and the amazing gullibility of SO many people (significant proportions of whom are teenagers, who of course know everything the moment they hit thirteen) and was afforded credibility by the notion that it came from an ancient civilization (which it didn't), and the supposition that ancient civilizations clearly had special mystical insight into the workings of the universe, spirituality, and everything. This kind of flies in the face of the self evident fact that such civilizations have gone, are defunct and effectively extinct. So much for special insight - yet a noisy minority of people really did seem to think that 2012 was the real crunch deal. Like I so eruditely said earlier: bollocks.

So, even though 2012 didn't bring us the end of the world, it was significant on a personal level for a number of reasons, some of which are included here;

First and foremost, my father passed away at the age of 81. He died stripped of his dignity and of his mental faculties, ravaged by dementia and Parkinson's disease. He was a great man - one of the old fashioned good guys who did the right thing simply because it was the right thing. I miss him a great deal.

I moved out of my mid forties and into my late forties, courtesy of my forty seventh birthday. Thanks number forty seven! Actually the event provided a degree of certainty: I am now well and truly in the 'middle aged' bracket as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Um...great. I think.

I decided to step away from a well paid job which entailed me travelling away from home most weeks, and working for a man who was patently a foolish, dishonest oaf. I resigned from my position and chasing a life-long dream, began to write. I'm still writing, all I need to do now is start selling it!

My wife and her son were formally granted permanent residence in Canada. This event means that there is now no prospect of my wife being required to leave the country without me - something which was a real concern for much of the year. We can now enjoy some permanence for the first time since we were reunited (after twenty two years) four years ago.

One of our two litter-mate dogs, Buckley, was lost to us. He suffered from liver failure (cause unknown) and over the space of five months our chirpy, occasionally maddeningly goofy big dog slipped away from us (written about in more detail at www.dogtastic.net). Our faithful, and irrepressibly good-natured friend is much missed and cannot be replaced.

I grew my own apples for the very first time - yes I know it's not very spectacular, but I was excited! Next year we should double or treble our apple crop, and quadruple our overall fruit yield. Our tiny little private subsistence urban farm is beginning to become a reality.

I launched this site. Opened on the back of my former business - related site, I decided to bring some of my wordpress musings into the daylight. My hope is to entertain, to engage and to converse with you as time moves on. I dearly hope that this site becomes something through which I can share and learn about myself and my readers. If you like what you read, please encourage others to take a peek.

While I have shared some quite personal stuff here, there are of course some areas of my life which remain private. Details of my relationship with my lovely wife will not, for example, become public at any time. Similarly, my children will not become the subjects of this site - what I hope to continue doing is to share my perspective upon the world, and with luck resonate with your own. I sincerely hope that 2013 brings with it more comments and conversation from my readers (the site stats tell me that you're out there) because I know that more thoughts we have from a variety of people, the more fun this will become.

I wish you all a wonderful 2013. If it helps, I'm pretty sure that the world won't end - unless of course some ancient civilization has already predicted.......